Setting the Table | No. 3 - Girls Dinner

A girls dinner is its own category of occasion. It is not a dinner party exactly, though it deserves everything a dinner party gets. It is not a casual hangout, though it should feel easy enough that no one is worried about the hostess being stuck in the kitchen. It is the dinner where the table is set properly, the cocktails are ready when everyone arrives, and the conversation is still going at eleven when no one meant to stay that late.

This is week three of Setting the Table, a year of fifty-two tables built from the same capsule collection styled for every occasion. The girls dinner table is one I set with the most intention of all of them. These are the people who matter. The table should say so.

Here is everything on ours.

The Table

We start with a white tablecloth as the base. Clean, simple, the kind of foundation that makes everything on top of it look considered. The Abigail Floral placemat goes on top, which brings the pattern and the spring feeling to the table without the tablecloth having to do any of that work. Then the Constance napkin alongside it in chocolate brown, which is a combination that should not work on paper and looks completely right in person.

The bamboo flatware on either side. It is relaxed and warm and the natural material ties back to the spring feeling of the Abigail placemat in exactly the right way. The stemless cocktail glass for the clementine cocktails when everyone first sits down, and a wine glass for the rose that comes with dinner.

Small bud vases of daisies scattered down the center of the table. Not one arrangement, several small ones. Daisies are the girls dinner flower. They are cheerful and unpretentious and they look beautiful in a bud vase on a spring table. The butter yellow taper candles in simple holders alongside them. The yellow picks up the warmth of the Abigail Floral without matching it too precisely, which is always the better choice.

What makes it feel like a girls dinner

The multiple bud vases. Scattering small vases of daisies down the center of the table instead of one large arrangement makes the table feel abundant and a little playful. It also means everyone at the table can see each other across the centerpiece, which matters more than most people think when you are sitting down for a long dinner with people you love.

The butter yellow candles. Tapers in a color that is not white or ivory feel like a decision. They feel like someone thought about this table. The butter yellow against the white tablecloth and the Abigail Floral is warm and spring-appropriate and slightly unexpected, which is the right combination for a girls dinner.

The layered linens. The white tablecloth under the Abigail Floral placemat under the Constance napkin is the Trudie approach to table styling. You are not matching, you are layering. Pattern on neutral on pattern, each piece doing its own job. This is what makes a table look like it was styled rather than just set.

The Menu

The best girls dinner menu is one where you are actually sitting at the table when your friends arrive. Everything here can be made ahead so the only thing you are doing when the doorbell rings is pouring the cocktails.

To start: A cheese and fruit board on the table when everyone walks in. Good cheese, honeycomb, marcona almonds, grapes, strawberries, and crackers. It looks generous and abundant and requires almost no effort. Set it out before anyone arrives so the table feels ready from the moment the door opens.

The cocktail: Clementine cocktails as everyone arrives. Fresh clementine juice, a good vodka, Cointreau, and some lime juice. Bright and citrusy and exactly right for a spring evening. Make a pitcher ahead of time so they are ready to go.

The main: The Oliver's Salad, a salmon bacon salad. This is the girls dinner salad that feels like a proper main course without being heavy. The combination of the crispy bacon and the salmon makes it substantial enough that no one leaves hungry, and the freshness of a good salad dressing keeps it feeling light and spring-appropriate. Make the components ahead and assemble right before you are ready to sit down.

The bread: A good crusty loaf on the table alongside the salad. Because there should always be bread.

To finish: Olive oil cake. This is the dessert that sounds impressive and is genuinely simple to make ahead. It keeps beautifully and actually gets better as it sits. Serve it with a little whipped cream and fresh berries on top and it looks like you spent the afternoon on it. You did not have to.

To drink with dinner: a cold rose. Something light and French-feeling that lets the salmon salad be the star.

The Outfit

A girls dinner in spring calls for something that feels a little special without being overdressed. The kind of outfit you put on and feel like yourself at your best, which is the only rule that ever really applies.

The first option is a green floral sundress. It picks up the green in the Abigail Floral placemat and the spring feeling of the whole table without being matchy in a way that feels deliberate. It is romantic and easy and completely right for an April girls dinner. Add diamond earrings and off white sandals.

The second option is a brown pointelle t-shirt with jeans. Add diamond earrings and off white sandals and you have a girls dinner outfit that looks effortlessly pulled together. Throw a roll neck sweater over the shoulders of either outfit as the evening cools down. It is the detail that takes both looks from dinner to something that feels a little more considered.

The Trudie Capsule

The Abigail Floral placemat, the Constance napkin, and the bamboo flatware are all part of the Trudie spring tabletop capsule, thirty-six pieces that work together for every occasion. The girls dinner is one of the tables I built the capsule around. These pieces were chosen to work together exactly like this.

More at the Table

Every week this year I am setting a new table and sharing the full guide here on the blog. Follow along on Instagram at @shoptrudie and on my Substack, At the Table with Megan, where I write about the table and everything that happens around it.